As television broadcasting, there are various forms such as terrestrial broadcasting, broadcasting satellite (BS) broadcasting, communications satellite (CS) broadcasting, cable television, and Internet broadcasting, and many programs are being provided to viewers. As one of techniques for searching for a program that a viewer desires to view, there is a similar program search.
As one of similar program search methods, a method of extracting words from electronic program guide (EPG) information of a program designated by a user, searching for EPG information of all programs using the words, and deciding a program similar to a designated program based on an appearance frequency of each word has been proposed. A technique of allocating the types of genres allocated to each of azimuth directions on an XY plane centering on an original point, arranging similar programs according to the genre, and presenting the similar programs to a user has been also known.
When the phrase-based similar program search is performed on program information having a genre, programs of the same genre are searched as similar programs. However, it is difficult to search for programs which differ in a genre but are high in similarity.
A technique of presenting a similar program based on a phrase and a similar program based on a genre in parallel has been proposed. However, this technique has the following problems. That is, programs having high similarity may be concentrated to a similar genre program output side. Further, when granularity of a genre of a program designated by a user is coarse (for example, a genre name “horticulture•pets•handicrafts”), programs of a very similar genre may be output to a similar phrase output side, and program of a different genre may be output to a similar genre program output side.